Description of the attraction
The Museum of Fine Arts is located in the center of Veliky Novgorod in the building of the Nobility Assembly, built in 1851. Several years ago, the building was renovated, and the Art Gallery of the Novgorod Museum was opened there. The first paintings in the museum began to replenish already in the post-revolutionary years. The works of Russian artists of the 18-20 centuries were brought from ruined and abandoned estates by the owners.
Many canvases needed restoration and reconstruction, but thanks to the efforts of the museum staff, you can still admire excellent artistic creations, almost in their original form, for example, the works of O. A. Kiprensky. "Boy with a Dog" and F. S. Rokotova "Portrait of a Lady in a Cap with a Blue Ribbon."
The art gallery was also supplemented by works transferred from the Central Museum Fund, canvases from Petrograd and suburban palaces. The closed estate-museums of Maryino, Gruzino, Vybiti also donated their funds to the Novgorod Museum of Ancient and New Art. During World War II, most of the collection was destroyed or lost. In the late 1940s, the surviving works were returned to Novgorod. Many paintings were bought from private individuals, accepted as a gift and replenished the gallery fund.
To date, the museum contains about six thousand excellent works of art. These are watercolor sketches and oil works, easel painting, graphics and sculptural compositions. The gallery includes works of art of various trends and styles. The collection combines the creations of both famous artists and the works of local little-known, but talented authors of the Russian province. The collection of portrait miniatures is the pride of the museum, most of which was acquired from a Moscow collector in 1979.
The exposition presenting Russian art of the 17th - 20th centuries in the Novgorod Museum is considered one of the best among the provincial museums in Russia. It helps to feel the history of the development and formation of Russian fine art, to touch the immortal paintings of geniuses. The most widespread genre of painting of the 18th century is considered to be a ceremonial portrait. Borovikovsky V. L. (1757 - 1825) and Levitsky D. G. (1735 - 1822) are achieving success in this. The works of these artists can also be seen in the gallery.
Art of the 19th century is extensively presented in the halls of the museum. In this period, romantic and realistic directions coexist and intersect; at the beginning of the 19th century, the influence of academic classicism was strong. In the funds of the Novgorod Museum there are several paintings by KP Bryullov, whose works represent a successful fusion of romanticism and academicism. The direction of romanticism in Russian painting is associated with the name of Ivan Aivazovsky (1817 - 1900). The Novgorod Museum displays early and late works by Aivazovsky, including: "Three in the Steppe", "Night in the Ukraine", "Sea View", "Sea with Pink Clouds" and others.
Artists in the genre of psychological portrait have achieved considerable success. Pictures “Portrait of Prince A. I. Vasilchikov "and" Portrait of an Unknown "by the author Kramskoy I. N. (1837-1887) are exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts. The gallery contains works by the gifted itinerant landscape painter II Shishkin (1832–1898). The exhibition presents his painting "Apiary in the Forest". Pictures of famous Russian artists of the 18-20 centuries: Repin, Antropov, Tropinin, Roerich, Kustodiev, Petrov-Vodkin, Korovin, Serov, as well as works of decorative and applied art, graphics and sculpture are presented in the museum's exposition.
The funds contain a large number of works by Soviet painters. The museum staff pay great attention to the works of local authors; at the exhibitions you can often see talented, original, distinctive works created by Novgorod craftsmen.
